2023 BAHRAIN PRE-SEASON TESTING – DAY 1
Bahrain International Circuit, Bahrain – Length 5.412km
AT04 – 02 / Driver: AM – Yuki Tsunoda // PM – Nyck de Vries

Nyck de Vries #21 Time: 1:34.559
85 laps – 460.020 km – Pos. 13th

“Today was our first day back on track with the AT04 at pre-season testing. In terms of execution and reliability, we had a positive day. Conditions were quite challenging with high track temperatures and strong winds, although this was the same for everybody. Ultimately, we went through the programme and even if it’s early, we continue to work on learning about our car and gathering as much data as possible.“

Yuki Tsunoda #22 Time: 1:34.671
46 laps – 248.952 km – Pos. 15th

“Today went smooth as a team. We were able to achieve the targets that we had set out and I’m happy with how I felt in the car. Compared to last year’s AT03, I can feel the clear progress we’ve made. We have identified things that we will need to improve on to make the car better in terms of balance, but there is a lot of potential. I am excited to see how the car will progress over the next days of testing.”

Jody Egginton (Technical Director)

“It was a solid first day with no issues with the car and only a single red flag in the morning, allowing for the majority of the run programme to be completed. Yuki drove first, with the early part of the morning given over to running the sidepod rakes and conducting several related aero tests. The data gathered from this is an important part of the correlation process. Following these tests, Yuki moved on to work on a number of test items and some basic set-up work, before handing over to Nyck for the afternoon session. Nyck continued with the various test items, making good use of both the C2 & C3 tyre compounds to also gather some very useful tyre data in the afternoon. It’s early days and, as normal, there will be variations in fuel loads and run programmes across the teams, but overall, we are happy with what we have learnt today. It gives us a clear idea of what to focus on going forward and we aim to build on this throughout the next two days.”